


What's Left of Me, What's Left of You

by thatsrightdollface



Series: Thinking about that Mysterious Earth C! [3]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Earth C (Homestuck), Gen, I got sad thinking about Gamzee being cut in half, M/M, Time Shenanigans, and hopes, but assuming Caliborn's Claymation Masterpiece DOES happen in this timeline, headcanons, here's some sap for afterwards, honestly I'm still a little confused about that, if Lord English's creation happens in this timeline, post-Caliborn's Masterpiece, the usual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-21
Updated: 2017-03-21
Packaged: 2018-10-08 23:10:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10398246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatsrightdollface/pseuds/thatsrightdollface
Summary: The thing about Claymation prophesies was, they didn’t really capture the full "gore and agony" aspect of whatever’s going down.  How could they, being all whimsical clay and smeary fingerprints?Gamzee Makara had imagined Caliborn’s Masterpiece plenty of times.  Oh, yes.  Sometimes he couldn’t stop dreaming about it, and this was HIM, Gamzee with the chucklevoodoos that had made their whole universe terminal.  Gamzee who could mess with your dreams if he felt like it, twisting them like slime stretched between his claws.  Sometimes he dreamt of Caliborn’s Masterpiece because he wanted to, because he was high on knowing he belonged to the riddle, he had always been an irrefutable part of his clown church, his gods.  And sometimes, sometimes the dream just wouldn’t let him go.Summaries are difficult.  Hm.  So you know that Claymation prophesy thing Caliborn made, that he called his "Masterpiece?"  This is about Gamzee and Karkat healing together, after that, and Gamzee getting somewhat put back together... Even missing half his soul.  It starts out angsty, and then becomes significantly less so.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Hi!!! Thanks for reading. 
> 
> Idk. I had thought Caliborn's Masterpiece probably happened in another timeline, but now I'm not so sure. Then I thought about it a lot and got sad. It made me feel a lot better to write out something sappy and healing set afterwards, so... Yes! I tried to get details right, but as usual I'm really sorry if I messed up somewhere.
> 
> Have a great day~

The thing about Claymation prophesies was, they didn’t really capture the full _gore and agony_ aspect of whatever’s going down.  How could they, being all whimsical clay and smeary fingerprints?

Gamzee Makara had imagined Caliborn’s Masterpiece plenty of motherfucking times.  Oh, yes.  Sometimes he couldn’t stop dreaming about it, and this was _him_ , Gamzee with the chucklevoodoos that had made their whole shitshow terminal.  Gamzee who could fuck with your motherfucking dreams if he felt like it, twisting them like slime stretched between his claws.  Sometimes he dreamt of Caliborn’s Masterpiece because he wanted to, because he was high on knowing he belonged to the riddle, he had always been an irrefutable part of his clown church, his gods.  And sometimes, sometimes the dream just wouldn’t let him go.   

Gamzee’d seen the little faceless “classic Honk Friend” piece that was supposed to be his own self sliced in two, yeah?  Seen it fall, both halves pretty damn far away from each other in the end of things.  Shit, man, he’d seen all that even knowing how the mystical voice inside Caliborn’s screens had said there wasn’t a single reality where he actually died.  No dead Gamzees, not in all paradox space.  He’d have to be a little afraid, then, you know? Even if his callings _were_ divine, and not just paradoxical.  Even if Lord English’s existence in the first place was already a motherfucking actual fact, so by now there was no way out.  Lord English had created himself.  He had set into motion all the hurting that would make him real – motherfucking time nonsense, again. 

Beyond the scrambling, cheerful Claymation figures, beyond all the time nonsense any cosmos could hold… _Gamzee was going to lose so much_.  He was going to offer away half of himself, and he was going to hurt like he couldn’t remember hurting before, and he was going to _lose so much,_ he felt _sure_.  He would lose his wholeness, he told himself; he would lose his life as it had been, up until that point, no matter how many different motherfuckers’ puppets he had been.  He’d lose his moirail, who he hadn’t told about any of this motherfucking shit.  Not really.  Not completely, not with all the bells and whistles. 

Hey Karkat, bro, the Vast Honk was half of Gamzee’s own motherfucking voice.  Isn’t that something?  How was a brother supposed to bring that up in conversation _now_ , after they’d finally gotten to talking again?  Pick Karkat up a human milkshake, take him on a long walk along the edge of the Consort Kingdom’s Carnivorous Botanical Garden…  Palemate, platonic love of my life: I’m the very same Angel of Double-Death you all got so motherfucking afraid of, but I can only pray you don’t think of him every time you shoosh me. 

So the answer was simple as whether a pie to the face was funny – Gamzee had _known_ it was going to suck when Caliborn’s prophesy came true in their reality, if the vision he’d glimpsed came true for them instead of some other-timeline motherfuckers.  He’d known.  He just couldn’t have _realized_ until it was happening, and he’d just come undone without _coming undone._

One half of Gamzee had been cackling as it happened, he knew, all shivering rage.   One half of him had been craving this moment, living for it, because he was Cal’s own hands and Cal’s own puppet.  It had all been true, after all.  All the things Gamzee’s friends mocked him for, the faith they ground under their dirty fucking heels – _true_.  He had been a joke to his friends, once, sure, but that joke had turned out just as deadly serious as it had always been funny. 

The other half of Gamzee, though, the other half had been gasping something like, “oH,” and something like, “sOrRy,” and something like a gurgling, bloody choke.  Gamzee was both those halves.  Both of his voices, his sobbing and his laughter, became the soundtrack for the rest of the battle.  _It was coming._   Machine guns and crowbars, stabbings and fridges hurtling through space – there had been nothing like this, not yet.  Not really.  Nothing like being torn in two, and waiting for it to _happen_.  The world was sticky, fizzing purple blood and pain.  The world was twofold voices and twofold gods and a boss fight to end all boss fights.  The Beta Kids were drawn away into a glowy magic house.  Check.  One by one, the Alpha Kids fell, and Jake’s hope powers shivered up and up inside him.  Too much light, and angel whispers turning to a scream.

Check.

Caliborn’s Masterpiece had not captured _this_.  It hadn’t captured the blood, human and troll all steaming together, it hadn’t captured the knocked out teeth and the hissed out threats or all that laughing, all that ragged split-throat laughing.  Perhaps nothing ever _could_ have captured it.

In a way, it was a release.  A horrible, ripping catharsis.  Gamzee would have no more giant secret wrapped up tight around him, closer than his shadow and so much darker.  But then there was the drain, as half his soul was taken into Lord English, as Dirk Strider dragged Caliborn and Equius and his own spiffy robotic glasses AI into the puppet.  Made Lil Cal _him_.  Them.  English.  Gamzee-Equius-AR-Caliborn-Caliborn-Caliborn. 

And then the Alpha Kids – shuddering, bruised and scrambling – dipped him/them deep into the void with Roxy’s help, the void that would allow Lord English to reach on back out and create himself.  Create Gamzee to create himself, to create this very moment, to create a hundred thousand thousand double-deaths to come.

At first, Gamzee wasn’t sure which side of himself had been taken, but then he realized he was still sobbing.              

~

Gamzee woke to a feeling like wind against his cheek, tangling through his hair. 

It was a little like the time he'd spent crunched up tight and crawling through the meteor's vent system. Hiding from Kanaya and her hungry chainsaw….  Hiding the fucked up things his other self whispered from Karkat and anyone else he still sort of hoped would believe in him again someday.  A little air would wind all through those motherfucking metal tunnels, metal veins, and make breathing easier every now and again.  It was so dusty and tight, in the vents, and sometimes Gamzee had shaken himself alert only to realize he had no idea where he'd just been. What he'd just done. His eyes would even flash Kurloz-bright, he could have sworn, their purple light reflected off the metal walls of the vents. Puppet of a puppet, puppet of so many other motherfuckers with schemes and well-heated irons. 

So for a moment, Gamzee leaned into the wind. And then he remembered what all had happened, and his bones rattled like he'd just fallen forward in a dream. Jumping nearly out of his skin, with a little gasp that was a little scream that was realizing once and forever that he was truly missing half his soul. Gamzee scraped all the edges of himself to find out what was missing, but he wasn't a hero of Heart. He couldn't motherfucking tell.  If the Rage had been drained right out of him, what was he even, then? The Bard of Fuck, I Forgot?

Caliborn's Masterpiece had come true, and the halls of Gamzee's mind felt long and strange, echoey with sides of himself, with desires and painful prophesies that he couldn't reach anymore. But somehow, he was breathing.  Somehow he was feeling the wind from a fan shaped like a smiling flower, angled right at his head. 

What the fuck, right? 

It was difficult, shifting, first opening his eyes completely and then moving them _away_ from the smiley fan.  Everything felt like sopor, like drifting.  A line of dull, muted pain ran down Gamzee’s whole self, deep inside and all the way through – sliced in half, he’d been sliced in half, that’s right.  Suddenly theater-mask stark (himself vs. himself.)  Dirk had moved quicker than most of the Mirthful Messiah’s own acrobattlers.  Perhaps he had expected Gamzee to fight back.  Why?  So he could prevent the prophesy his whole motherfucking life had been building toward?  That was one of the best jokes yet.

But if Gamzee had been sliced in half, why did he feel both his eyes aching?  Why did he feel both sets of his toe-claws scraping against the inside of blankets?

Before Gamzee managed to fully get himself awake and moving – before he managed to look away from the flower fan, mainly, truth be motherfucking told –  he quieted enough to hear the voices on either side of him.  On one side, a mellow rumble, like the low crackle of a vast fire, like the grinding of gears upon gears upon gears. On the other side, the kind of loud and spitting whispers that really only one troll could manage while still thinking he was keeping it nice and motherfucking chill. 

Karkat?

Gamzee couldn’t piece any of the words together or any of that being-awake shit, not yet, but he could _tell_ it was Karkat.  And when he felt a pressure against his hand through the blankets, from Karkat’s side, his heart tumbled over itself and burned.  He had known he was going to lose this version of himself, lose himself to the monster-angel and to pain.  Hadn’t he?  He had known Karkat was going to be furious and disgusted and give up on him once and for all.  Hadn’t he?

Watching Caliborn’s Masterpiece, it had seemed as though Gamzee’s whole half-self would be sucked out, funneled behind Lil Cal’s staring puppet eyes.   He was just a wad of purple clay in that video, after all, and that whole piece had lost its shape and been dragged away.  He hadn’t been sure there would even be a half-skin to shuffle off, at that point.  And then he’d have been what was left, he figured, a half-body all stuck through with sliced bones that couldn’t very well stretch into even more motherfucking bones somehow, barring a miracle… Sliced organs that could heal all they wanted but would still keep on spurting blood into the air like grape Faygo fountains.  Gamzee had imagined it plenty.  You know.  The dreams.  But now, he squeezed his claws just the littlest bit, twisting his hand around so Karkat might be able to hold it properly if he wanted.  And he thought he could _tell_ this wasn’t a robot hand: it was sweaty beneath the blanket.  This wasn’t a robot hand: it had his same broken nails and familiar clicking knuckles.

“HOLY FUCKING SHIT,” Karkat exclaimed.  Yes, this.  _This_ was familiar.  This was all-caps genuine Karkat screaming, if Gamzee had ever heard it.  “HE’S AWAKE.  GUYS, HE’S AWAKE.  DID YOU GET THOSE PAIN MEDS THROUGH HIM YET?”

“Heeeeeeee’s responding a Little Strangely to the IV Drip after all,” said a voice Gamzee didn’t recognize.  It was high and wheedling, shifting from very casual to sort of Kanaya-style prim and proper between words, depending on what all it was saying.  When he scraped his eyelids open a little further, dragging his gaze off the fan and back into the world, Gamzee saw it was a purple blooded doctor – his blood, clown blood – wearing face paint complete with exaggerated tear drops and a big motherfucking smile.  Perfect for delivering good news, and bad news, both.  Motherfucking smart.  “Years of Sopor Slime Addiction will do that to a troll, you know what I’m saying?  But the pain should be Mostly Gone.  Soon, at least, if not actually right now!”

“THAT IS _NOT_ FUCKING GOOD ENOUGH,” Karkat said.  Gamzee took in his protective moirail-ish fury, and could barely believe it.  This was like some risqué palemance daydream he’d have had, back before he and Karkat had even met face to face.  This didn’t feel real.  Everything had just been pain and falling, pain and scream-laughing, pain and Caliborn crumpling to the ground like the puppet that now held all their souls locked tight.  Would anyone take care of Caliborn’s body, Gamzee wondered?  Oh messiahs, would Aradia give his shell one of her Earth C famous Corpse Parties?  But he wasn’t dead.  Caliborn wasn’t dead – this was all he had ever wanted, after all.  His skeleton face would be smiling madly, even tucked all motherfucking sweet into a silky death box of Aradia’s choosing.  His staring, empty eyes would be all glossy and plastic-looking, just like you-know-whose.  (Cal.  That was who.)

More likely, actually, someone would have just kicked Caliborn’s husk into space.  That felt like an angry-Roxy thing to do.  It’s what Caliborn himself would have done to an enemy, too, probably, if said enemy didn’t look like they’d be good eating.

But even while Gamzee thought about Caliborn and said a tired mental goodbye-that-wasn’t-goodbye… Even while Gamzee marveled over the vein twitching in Karkat’s forehead as he unceremoniously shoved a horde of purple blooded doctors with clipboards covered in rhinestones and squiggles and drawings of Gamzee wearing a very magnificent party hat right out the fucking door…  Gamzee woke up a little more.  He took in the room – it was a hospital in the Consort Kingdom, for some reason.  Dirk Strider and Jake English’s domain.  Maybe they felt a little responsible for what all had gone down – maybe Karkat had demanded Dirk set up something good and official for Gamzee’s medical shit, and Dirk had been all, _“Dude I know just the tree.”_   But would Karkat have really done something like that?  Where was the catch?  When would the world’s enormous cosmic zipper rip itself open, and reveal Gamzee torn in half and shivering alone on his and Caliborn’s own grey world?   

The world didn’t zip itself open, though, at least not yet.  The Consort Kingdom hospital was a circular bubble of a room built dangling from the arm of a tree, a branch as wide as a highway and very, very thick.  Vines dripped from the ceiling like monochrome streamers.  Posters of famous bubble-newts saying inspirational things hung from the walls.  Gamzee pried one of his hands out from under the blankets and felt his face – felt for both sides of his face, really.  Part of him expected to have half a robotic body, like a reverse of what Tavros had been motherfucking saddled with, all the way up until he was pinching both cheeks til they hurt.  The stitches down his face were metal and strange, like clamps – they went deep into the bone.  They were well-crafted enough to explain the second voice Gamzee’d heard, before, when the room was still little more than a bit of wind, a smiling fan.

“D - - >  Are you alright, Highblood?” a ghost Equius asked, from Gamzee’s other side.  This wasn’t his own motherfucking Equius, not the same one who had signed online every motherfucking day to tell Gamzee what a disgrace he was…  But he was pretty damn close.  Equius had gone hunting Gamzee on the night his gods’ voices first came for him, at Karkat’s orders – Equius had sacrificed himself alongside Dave’s bro’s autoresponder and held Caliborn still enough to draw out his soul.  Gamzee had known that would happen, but he hadn’t had any motherfucking clue that Equius was going to help stick him back together, too.

Gamzee opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out except a hacking cough, except the taste of blood.  Karkat slammed the door behind the parade of clown doctors and strode back to Gamzee’s bed.  He looked all kinds of freaked out, but Equius was offering Gamzee a cup of water with an apologetic half-smile.  Why?  What was with his elegantly stitched lab coat, or the ring on his finger all lined in paw prints and olive stones?  Why was Equius even here? 

“D - - > The medication must be working sufficiently well, for him to cough like that without screaming,” Equius said, as Gamzee drained as much of the cup as he could without the burn of it down his split-in-half throat being too much.  Drops sparked through the scabbing holes in his neck, splattering his blankets with purplish rain.

“hEy BrO,” Gamzee tried, looking at Karkat all pleading – he wasn’t honestly sure how _not_ to look pleading, in that moment – but it came out throaty and wrong.  He swallowed.  His everything stung and burned and shifted on the bed, beneath the bloody blankets. 

“YOU COULD HAVE TOLD ME,” said Karkat, still in his yelling-at-doctors voice.  “WE SAW CALIBORN’S CLAYMATION THING.  WE KNOW YOU HAD AT LEAST A FEW DUMB AND CRUDELY ANIMATED IDEAS WHAT DESTINY HAD COOKING FOR YOU LIKE SOME KIND OF OBSCENE FUCKING MYSTERY MEAT.  DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW _FUCKING TERRIFIED_ I WAS WHEN DIRK CALLED ME, TOLD ME WHAT HAPPENED? _ALL YOUR FRIENDS FEEL RESPONSIBLE._   EVEN GHOST EQUIUS FEELS RESPONSIBLE FOR NOT PICKING UP THE SIGNS, FOR SOME REASON, OR FOR NOT FIGURING OUT WHAT SORT OF FUCKING PLAN YOU HAD, AND WE DON’T EVEN KNOW GHOST EQUIUS!!!  THIS ISN’T EVEN OUR EQUIUS!!!!”

Ghost Equius bowed, as Karkat ranted about him, and Gamzee kind of shrugged a bow back.

“I WOULD’VE BEEN READY TO HELP YOU, YOU ABSOLUTE FUCKING IDIOT,” Karkat was telling Gamzee.  _Absolute Fucking Idiot._   Man, that brought back some motherfucking memories.  Karkat hadn’t called Gamzee anything like that in sweeps, not since they became moirails again and started trying extra hard to balance, to be chill with each other.  “OR.  NOT IDIOT?  YOU LYING JERK.  DIRK TOLD ME ONLY THE CRYING, SHAKING SIDE OF YOU WAS LEFT.  WITH THE RAGE ALL OUT OF YOUR EYES, AND…  HOLY…  GAMZEE, I DIDN’T KNOW I COULD BE SO SCARED FOR YOU.  THE LIGHT PLAYERS SAW SOMETHING, YEAH, SOMETHING THAT HAD TO HAPPEN TO KEEP THE TIMELINE ALL SMOOTH AND SHIT, BUT THEY DIDN’T KNOW _YOU_ …  DIRK TOLD ME THEY DIDN’T KNOW, AND I WANT TO BELIEVE HIM.”

“bEcAuSe He’S dAvE’s BrOtHeR,” Gamzee offered.  “i GoT yOu, MaN.  dOn’T wOrRy.”

“DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MUCH PURPLE BLOOD ALL THOSE FUCKING GIGGLE HAPPY CLOWN DOCTORS HAD TO LIBERATE FROM TROLL KINGDOM HOSPITALS FOR YOU?!?!  IT WAS A LOT.  A LOT OF STICKY PURPLE BLOOD WE HAD TO CARRY UP THIS TREE.  IT WOULD HAVE BEEN SO MUCH EASIER WITH SOME WARNING, GAMZEE.  I AM ALL FUCKING EARS, LIKE SOME KIND OF HIDEOUS FREAK OF NATURE PILE OF BREATHING, OOZING EARS CRAWLING AROUND AND LEAVING A SLIME TRAIL OF EAR WAX EVERYWHERE.”

Gamzee had to take a while to sort his words out then, maybe because his brain had been recently clamped together by Ghost Equius’s mysterious metal stitches, but probably mostly because Karkat was looking at him like he needed some good explanation _right the fuck then._ And not like he was just angry, oh _no_ …  Karkat had been afraid plenty of times in his life – afraid Gamzee might subjugglate him on the meteor, for instance, and afraid someone unfriendly might figure out his own candy-coated, salty-sweet blood color and report him to the Imperial Drones.  He’d been afraid since he figured out he was unwanted in the Empress’s Alternia, since they’d fired up the game and ended up in a slaughter fest, since they’d been hailed as the glorious Creators of a brand new Earth C.  Gamzee was supposed to help smooth over Karkat’s fear and turn it into eye rolls and smirking.  Gamzee was supposed to drawl a little joke, and watch Karkat smack his forehead and mutter, _“oh sweet fucking jegus,”_ to himself all quiet and warm.  But Karkat had been afraid, maybe more afraid than he’d really needed to be, because of a choice Gamzee had made.  That wasn’t what was supposed to motherfucking happen, now, was it?

Gamzee reminded himself of his reasons, and then he choked out, “I wAnTeD tO sAvOr iT,  lIkE tHe LaSt FaYgO lEfT oN tHe MeTeOr.  ReMeMbEr?  I kNeW mAyBe I’d OnLy Be My FuLl SeLf FoR a LiTtLe WhIlE lOnGeR, aNd FuCk It If I wAs GoNnA lEt ThAt Go To WaStE.  i’M sOrRy, BrO.  i DiDn’T wAnT yOu To GiVe Up On Me.  It WaS sOmE hArD sHiT tO gEt DeEp InTo ThInKiNg AbOuT.”    

Karkat flopped down, then, into one of the rickety wooden chairs by the bed, with a few of their leaves still clinging on.  It seemed as though some of the stiff-spine hurt drained out of him, then, leaving an unfamiliar stillness.  He nodded to the ghost Equius, who gave a little half-bow and got the motherfuck out of there.  Gamzee couldn’t see his hollow white eyes from behind their cracked frames, but he wondered if they’d look sad.  If he was thinking through what it meant that he was a slice of Gamzee’s god, too; if he would quietly obsess over what it meant that he’d given up his soul all heroically, when it mattered.  This was just one ghost Equius, who had wandered in even after Lord English’s fatal housekeeping, after so many sizzling double-deaths.  What kind of guilty responsibility had made him come through here, come to assist the clown doctors with his steady hands and scarily intimate knowledge of undying Subjugglator anatomy?  Had Gamzee simply not strangled him with a broken bow, in his reality?  Or did he know, now, what that twisted dance, what that Midnight Calliope, had meant?  Maybe he got all that shit more completely than Gamzee did, Gamzee who was still kind of freaking out about everything, sometimes.  It was just another mystery, honestly.      

“did you really think i would throw you away, if you were completely honest with me?” Karkat asked.  Gamzee flinched, which hurt like a motherfucker.  “i mean… if i saw how pitiful you’d sound, talking about wanting to stay yourself as long as possible?  plus that whole thing people keep reminding me about, that because lord english definitely exists the prophesy thing kind of _had_ to come true?”

“I dUnNo,” said Gamzee, which wasn’t enough, and he knew it.

  “did you really think i would forget that as your moirail, it’s my job to stop you from…  from hurting yourself???  and other people???”

“LiKe ThE aNgEl HuRt ThOsE gHoStS yOu MeAn,” said Gamzee, thinking of what it would have changed if this ghost Equius who’d helped stitch him up had been given a mirthful double-death out among the stars.  “BuT kArKaT, bRo, I dOn’T rEmEmBeR lIvInG aS lOrD eNgLiSh.  I dOn’T kNoW eVeRyThInG tHaT’s GoNe DoWn.  Or Is GoInG dOwN?  NoNe Of ThAt ShIt Is On YoU.  yOu DiDn’T kNoW.  i DiDn’T eVeN kNoW uNtIl iT wAs ToO mOtHeRfUcKiNg LaTe…”  Gamzee trailed off.  It was a lot to explain.  A lot to wrap his own mind around, now that he was looking at it from the other side.  Another self, another voice, another, another, another.  He’d told Karkat pieces, over the sweeps.  He’d told Karkat enough that he was nodding, now.

“i know,” said Karkat.  “but i don’t like to think you expected me to throw you away.  goddammit, gamzee.”

The defeat in Karkat’s voice was dark and heavy, like falling into a well, and Gamzee thought about what he could say to climb back out again.  Maybe he would try to explain how he thought what was left of himself wouldn’t be as likely to hurt anybody else, how Karkat’s job would be easier, now. _Remember when I fed sopor slime pies to the imps instead of beating them up?_ he could ask.  _And our actual Equius got all mad at me, but I didn’t get what he was on about, then?  Maybe that’s the side of me left behind, now._ Maybe he would assure Karkat that he didn’t think he would throw him away, not anymore.  Possibly not ever.  Gamzee could say how his mind had been changed, and maybe that would count for something.  Maybe he’d explain that he’d always hoped Karkat would still want him, after everything, but that the hope had ached like a bad tooth.  The more he tested it, waggling a tongue against it, the more it had hurt.  The more the tooth had seemed to give way.  But he’d always, always hoped.  Maybe there was something missing in Gamzee, now, and Karkat could tell, and that was part of why he seemed so slumped and hurting. 

“there _is_ something serious, though,” Karkat offered, voice like a rope lowered into deep water to pull Gamzee back up to him.  It was quiet, you know?  And coaxing, maybe.  He’d tried that gentleness out on Gamzee a few times, by that point.  A few times since the ending of the game, and the rise of the paradise planet foretold.  When Gamzee was startled by a horde of Kurloz-worshippers, one time, for instance.  When they’d gone back to the meteor, to Gamzee’s lusus all coiled with his goat head bent and his fish tail twisted in jagged spirals, wrapped up tight in a formaldehyde tomb.  Back to horn piles grown dusty and skittering with spiders. 

“WhAt?” Gamzee managed.  Then he cleared his throat and tried again – he figured it was bullshit to keep on opening cabinets in his head, looking behind dusty funhouse mirror memories, searching for the missing pieces of himself.  He had known this was coming.  It was especially bullshit to do all his non-metaphorical soul searching now, with Karkat’s eyebrows bunched together with worry instead of anger.  With Karkat’s eyes still a little glossy-red with unshed tears.  He always was quick to care, Karkat.  Like, really actually _care_.  Quick to care about being a leader, about being wanted, about fictional romances in every motherfucking quadrant, in so many motherfucking rom-coms.  “WhAt’S tHaT, bRoThEr?”  Gamzee imagined adding an emoticon smiley to that line, there, but he wasn’t sure his own smile came out anything but shaky and strange.  It fell apart quickly, like it was made of dried-out Claymation prophesy clay.

“shoosh,” said Karkat, gentle, still so gentle.  He patted a hand against Gamzee’s arm, his lip curling up in a self-conscious smile.  Karkat’s smiles were becoming easier and more genuine, Gamzee thought.  Pap.  Shoosh.  Like long ago, in another life, where Gamzee had been wracked by Rage and godly knowings, where Karkat had held him until he grew limp.  Pap.  Shoosh.  “i said ‘serious,’ not ‘sad.’  you look all heartbroken and shit, still.”

“I’m NoT,” said Gamzee, though he couldn’t help wondering _things_.  Sad things, like whether the other side of himself, crumpled up in the mind of a monstrous, miraculous angel, felt anything at all.  Whether he was separate or blended, drifting like oil in water or mashed together like a fucking smoothie.  Which would be better?  Which would be less of a loss, less of a heartbreak?  True, it was an honor of hilarious and infinite value, to be forever part of a god.  True it was a rightful purpose unlike any of the laughing doctrines of old, and a true it was a vast commandment like no clown routine ever performed…  But that didn’t mean it couldn’t also be a heartbreak, now.  “I’m ThInkInG i GoT a HapPiEr MoThErFuCkInG eNdInG tHaN i CoUlD’vE eVeR eVeN pRaYeD fOr, YoU kNoW?”

“yeah,” said Karkat, though he didn’t sound entirely convinced.  “but it’s the fact that you prayed for a happy ending at all that gets to me – fuck, no, that’s not what i meant… it’s the fact that you knew this lord english thing was going to happen for _actual fucking sweeps_ and didn’t say anything.”

“sOrRy, KaRkAt,” said Gamzee.  “BuT wOuLd YoU hAvE bElIeVeD mE?  rEaLlY?  oR wOuLd YoU hAvE tRiEd To StOp AlL tHiS sHiT sOmEhOw?  I dOn’T tHiNk It _CoUlD_ hAvE bEeN sToPpEd, YoU kNoW?”

“ _I’M_ sorry,” Karkat said.  There was a time when Gamzee would’ve never expected to hear those words from him, let alone with such intensity, such helpless, heavy eyes.  “i have honestly no fucking idea what i would have done.  we’ll probably never know.  but you have to promise me, as my moirail that i will platonically love and pap shoosh back from oblivion if i ever fucking have to: NO MORE SECRETS.  no more weird plotting to combine with gross skeleton aliens to become your own gods.  no more knowing something mind-blowing is going to happen to you and keeping it all hush-hush like a fucking surprise party or a shitty movie you’re embarrassed to like.  _no.  more.  of this fucking unbelievable secret-keeping nonsense.”_

Whatever Gamzee had been expecting Karkat to say, that definitely wasn’t it.  He laughed – a short burst, like the sudden honk of a horn a motherfucker stepped on all half-asleep and shit.  “SuRe, BrO,” Gamzee said.  “iF a ProMiSe ReAlLy MeAnS aNyThInG tO yOu, YoU hAvE mY mOtHeRfUcKiNg WoRd.”  _As your moirail.  As the motherfucker that would pap shoosh you back from oblivion if you ever needed it, but would probably more often be telling you it’s okay to stop beating yourself up about this shit or that shit.  Who would platonically love you, though, just like you motherfucking said, bro.  Just like you motherfucking said._  

“anything you want to get out of the way, now?”  Karkat asked.  He glanced around the Consort Kingdom hospital tree – moonlight filtered in through creaking branches, still, and the bleep of machinery wove together weirdly with the chirps and hums of patients in all the disconnected bubble-rooms all around.  It smelled like growing things, growing things and antiseptic.  “i don’t think anyone can hear us, anyway.  equius is snoring so fucking loud, now, how could they?  that guy falls asleep fast.”

“NoT rEaLlY,” said Gamzee.  “i DuNnO oF aNy SeCrEtS tHaT cOuLd ReAlLy Be WoRsE, yOu KnoW?  bUt I’lL bE aLl ‘HoLd ThE pHoNe: SeCrEt TiMe’ iF i EvEr CoMe Up WiTh AnYtHiNg.”

“you damn well better.”

“SaMe GoEs FoR yOu, BrO,” said Gamzee, and then Karkat nodded and squeezed his arm, muttering something about how none of _his_ secrets involved ancient Lord of Time horrors and the rampant slaughtering of ghosts.  Then they sat in a little softly breathing silence, for a while.

“i was wrong,” Karkat said, eventually, slumping forward in his chair so his head half-rested against Gamzee’s pillow.  Gamzee was going to scoot over for him a little, slowly, so he didn’t fuck up his stitches.  He started the scooting process, then, nice and gentle, trying not to wince too dramatically at the tug of his ripped-apart back, and all the little screaming tugs of his ripped-apart insides.  But if he could crawl along after Caliborn even after being beaten silly with a crowbar, even after being popped full of machine gun holes, he could get Karkat a little space on the hospital bed.  Karkat didn’t seem to notice his scooting-mission, of course.  His eyes were closed in concentration; his cheek was feverish.  He didn’t seem tired, exactly.  One of his legs was rattling up and down and up and down with nervous energy.  It shook the bed, just the littlest bit.  “i was wrong, back when i kept spouting yell-y, self-important nonsense about how you weren’t going to play any major role in our game.  about how your title was clearly a joke, and all that.  you were like… you were the final boss, gamzee.  part of you was, anyway.”

“hOlY sHiT,” said Gamzee, patting the bed for Karkat to slide in next to him.  Karkat didn’t notice, so he nudged his arm and tried again.

Karkat flushed darker red-on-grey, and climbed up next to Gamzee.  Lots of awkward, shuffling sideways movements did it, kind of like how his crab lusus might have moved.  Gamzee had never met Karkat’s lusus, but he’d imagined him plenty – clacking and screeching, scurrying around with claws shaped just like Karkat’s sickles.  “holy shit is right.”

Maybe Karkat would grab his husktop up off the floor and they’d watch something with it balanced between them.  Maybe he’d start getting Gamzee to take more medicine, or whatever the motherfuck else would’ve been normal in a place like this, that was a hospital but _also_ an enormous tree full of sentient newts wearing irrelevant hairnets.  Maybe they were both remembering a Halloween night under the fresh Earth C stars, when they’d started up talking again, when it was beginning to look like they might have a chance at friendship after all, a chance at more.  Gamzee had never had a moirail before, after all.  Not in _this_ fateful timeline.  He’d actually never had any motherfucking quadrant officially filled at all, until Karkat.  He’d sometimes thought it wouldn’t be possible to keep even that up, with a crushing prophesy like his own.  Part of the final boss, and all that.  The teller of some cosmic joke nobody he knew had really wanted to get. 

But, now, next to him, Karkat was still monologuing about everything Gamzee had missed.  That was a pretty good sign that things were working themselves right out.  Somehow.  Karkat was swooshing his hands around, jabbing them in the air, miming what he figured it must look like for someone to get crammed inside a mystical floating house and spat back out again in the past.  Gamzee was laughing, providing sound effects.  Dave, Rose, Jade and John had gotten released by Vriska, for the final battle Gamzee’d missed while he was in that prison-fridge.  But the Dave waiting at home for Karkat – the Dave possibly rapping into the bathroom mirror just then, or ironically watching _My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic_ with his alternate timeline older/younger brother to help soothe both their nerves – was not the Dave that he’d been last night. Now he was the dude who’d gotten stuck in the floaty house, and he knew a hell of a lot more about what kind of card games you whipped out when you’re painfully bored and your friends don’t want to play I-Spy anymore.  Also, paradoxes and godhood.  He knew more about those things, too. 

“SO I’D _WANT_ TO SAY, ‘ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL,’ BUT NONE OF THIS IS EVEN OVER, IS IT?!” Karkat was exclaiming, tracing his eyes along the stitch-mark divide between the sides of Gamzee’s face.  Searching his eyes for something Gamzee couldn’t name.  Karkat’s arm was wrapped tightly around his own, by that point, holding him close, as if afraid even more of him might decide to up and drift away.  “THIS TIME SHIT IS THE ABSOLUTE WORST.  DAVE SPENT AN IMPOSSIBLE AMOUNT OF TIME IN SOMETHING STUPIDLY CALLED A ‘JUJU,’ BUT TO ME IT WAS LIKE AN HOUR.  BECAUSE HE WENT BACK IN TIME, OR _ALL THROUGH TIME_ SOMEHOW, THE PAST THE FUTURE AND FUCKING EVERYTHING, AND THEN TIME DJ’D HIS WAY INTO OUR KITCHEN BECAUSE WHY NOT.  AND DON’T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON VRISKA.  VRISKA MANAGED TO LET EVERYBODY OUT OF SAID JUJU, AT THE COST OF… I GUESS???... DISAPPEARING MYSTERIOUSLY LIKE SOME KIND OF SHITTY FUCKING STAGE MAGICIAN.  AND SHE’S BEEN GONE A WHILE NOW.  LIKE… HUNDREDS OF FUCKING SWEEPS.  BUT MAYBE SHE’LL SHOW UP LIKE ‘HEY GUYS THANKS FOR WAITING JUST A HOT FUCKING SECOND, I’M BACK WITH NEW MISSIONS!  MORE IRONS TO JAM UNCEREMONIOUSLY INTO WHATEVER FIREPLACES YOU HAPPEN TO HAVE LYING AROUND!’  _WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN NEXT?”_

“No MoThErFuCkInG cLuE,” said Gamzee.  “bUt FoR nOw, ThIs HeLpS.”

Listening to Karkat helped fill the silence, the aching emptiness waiting down some of those unexplored hallways through Gamzee’s mind.  Holes rotted through by sopor, staring now, staring _again_ , and what would stare back out of them this time?  Maybe nothing.  Hopefully nothing but Gamzee’s own self, letting out a sigh of relief.

Not going into the future alone helped too, of course.  No more secrets, Gamzee had promised.  No more secrets held closer than what remained of his soul, and no more battles charged into all alone. 

“good,” said Karkat.  His expression softened; he nodded, just a tiny bit.  Something in Gamzee’s eyes, in the ragged new scar down his face, down his entire self, had been enough.  Karkat settled in closer, his hair tickling against Gamzee’s cheek, his sweater a little rough from too many washings.  “good.  then i guess that’s what matters, tonight.”

And then he got going again about _just how much_ having to deal with endless time shenanigans sucked, and Gamzee was nodding along and saying yeah, brother, yeah like he’d been afraid he would never get the chance to do again.           


End file.
